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Tag Archives: free-verse

had this been our trade, a deliberant movement of that divinity – may it cradle your head in rest, as it does mine –
had you, from my inheritance been made the ruler of kingdoms and the lover of humankind,
still I would not do battle for it; my blade is drawn inward

And even my weakness, I despise for the wrong reasons. It’s not a question of whether or not it should be despised, in that I have made up my own mind, and each attempt to shake me from the familiar stranglehold is met with more than barred teeth. You don’t understand at all. Even for this, I fought.

For precious little, I fought.

The microcosmic narrative into which I waded, eventually escaping the chill of the air, for this I fought.

you read yourself in the gold-crusted words of narcissists; humming their benedictions with innocent submission to their cosmic missions of suicide; I can feel the world growing wide in your eyes; sense the way each bone in your body becomes a conductor for the will of the child’s mind; they taught you to seek a sanctuary in low lights and racing hearts, but they never thought you’d make it so far without a single word; now their words belong to you – you take them for yourself – you wear them like perfume; they cling to you, and you cling to me

upward; your name and my eyes train toward the stars – whole and wholly gone I can no more trace your trajectory than I can discern the daily patterns of the dead –

yet my darling, you live. i think you live. i pray you live. i know the facticity of where your feet have been, what your hands have touched, what your lips have curved upon – don’t try Marlboro Red’s, they have additives, and i hope you don’t come back with ashes under your tongue, my sweet –

but what of it? tell me, you can’t tell me, i don’t deserve to know the landscape which your inner-self surveys; i can’t catch the gleam of projected plans, contracted fears, fractured emotions in its unblinking eyes – do you blink, and savor the darkness? do you, love? what is there for you in the darkness but rest, the rest you awaken in the day

talk to me; share with me a token from your native land – a talisman, piecemeal, bargain price, factory-made, for i swear to you, i have never seen it or anything of its sort